New York City

Dim Sum at Golden Unicorn, New York, NY

Last week my buddy and I decided to venture to Chinatown for some dim sum. We hopped on the subway and headed towards Golden Unicorn Restaurant located at 18 East Broadway, between Catherine St and Market St. This restaurant is actually inside a business office building. When we walk in to the building, there was a small hallway with a handful of people waiting for the elevators. Next to the elevators, there was a lady at a little podium. She greeted us and told us to proceed to the second floor for dim sum. Since we went on a weekday, it’s not very crowded and we didn’t have to wait. During crowded times, she’ll give you a number and you’ll have to patiently wait until they call your number.

We were quickly seated. They brought out the teapot and placed the stamp card on the table. Now, we were ready to dine!
In no time, we were bombarded with dim sum pushcarts. It was neat how each cart had pictures and names of the types of dishes on the front. That way, you knew what was offered in the cart.
We quickly ordered some of our favorite dim sum dishes (from top left in clockwise order): chicken feet, shrimp cheong fun (rice noodle roll), siu mai (pork and mushroom) dumplings, and steamed spare ribs.

There were several flat screen LCD televisions around the dining hall broadcasting news. I think they had it turned to CNN.

Table filled with half eaten dim sum

The dim sum was very tasty, maybe not the best dim sum I’ve ever had, but definitely one of my top choices for NYC Chinatown. Prices are cheap/good. Our bill came out to under $20, for two. The service was ok in an interesting way. Most of the waitstaff were pretty grumpy looking, but they frequently came by to clear finished dishes off the table, refill our tea pot with hot water, and replace our messy plates with clean plates. The ladies pushing the dim sum carts were pretty impatient and kept coming by our table trying to offer more food to us, even when we were still working on the dishes we had on the table. When we wanted to order just one dish out of the cart, they tried to convince us to order other dishes as well. I guess that could be a good or bad thing. It’s good, because you don’t have to be worried about being ignored, but at the same time, I could see how it might be annoying. I don’t mind it though, as long as I get my food.